talk to me about books, and about silence, and apologies, and sending Captain Fitzboodle to me? I don't want to see Captain Fitzboodle-great fat brute! I know him perfectly well."

"Hush!" say I, "here's Bedford." In fact, Dick appeared at this juncture, to close the house and put the lamps out.

But Captain Clarence only spoke or screamed louder. "What do I care about who hears me? That fellow insulted me already to-day, and I'd have pitched his life out of him, only I was down, and I'm so confounded weak and nervous, and just out of my fever-and-and hang it all! what are you driving at, Mr. What's-your-name ?". And the wretched little creature cries almost as he speaks.

Once for all, will you agree that the affair about which we spoke shall go no further?" I say, as stern as Draco.

"I shan't say anythin' about it. I wish you'd leave me alone, you fellows, and not come botherin'. I wish I could get a glass of brandy-and-water up in my bedroom. I tell you I can't sleep without it," whimpers the wretch.

"Sorry I laid hands on you, sir," says Bedford, sadly. "It wasn't worth the while. Go to bed, and I'll get you something warm."

"Will you, though? I couldn't sleep without it. Do now -do now! and I won't say anythin'-I won't now-on the honour of a gentleman, I won't. Good-night, Mr. What-d'yecall." And Bedford leads the helot to his chamber.

"I've got him in bed; and I've given him a dose; and I put some laudanum in it. He ain't been out. He has not had much to-day," says Bedford, coming back to my room, with his face ominously pale.

66

"You have given him laudanum?" I ask.

66 Sawbones gave him some yesterday,-told me to give him a little-forty drops," growls Bedford.

Then the gloomy major-domo puts a hand into each waistcoat pocket, and looks at me. "You want to fight for her, do you, sir? Calling out, and that sort of game? Phoo!" and he laughs scornfully.

"The little miscreant is too despicable, I own," say I, "and it's absurd for a peaceable fellow like me to talk about powder and shot at this time of day. But what could I do?”

"I say it's SHE ain't worth it," says Bedford, lifting up bothclenched fists out of the waistcoat pockets.

"What do you mean, Dick?" I ask.

"She's humbugging you, she's humbugging me,—she's humbugging everybody," roars Dick. "Look here, sir!" and out of one of the clenched fists he flings a paper down on the table.

66

What is it?" I ask. It's her handwriting. I see the neat trim lines on the paper.

"It's not to you; nor yet to me," says Bedford.

"Then how dare you read it, sir?" I ask, all of a tremble. "It's to him. It's to Sawbones," hisses out Bedford. "Sawbones dropt it as he was getting into his gig; and I read it. I ain't going to make no bones about whether it's wrote to me or not. She tells him how you asked her to marry you. (Ha!) That's how I came to know it. And do you know what she calls you, and what he calls you, that castorhoil beast? And do you know what she says of you? That you hadn't pluck to stand by her to-day. There, it's all down under her hand and seal. You may read it, or not, if you like. And if poppy or mandragora will medicine you to sleep afterwards, I just recommend you to take it. I shall go and get a drop out of the Captain's bottle-I shall.”

And he leaves me and the fatal paper on the table.

Now, suppose you had been in my case-would you, or would you not, have read the paper? Suppose there is some news-bad news-about the woman you love, will you, or will you not, hear it? Was Othello a rogue because he let Iago speak to him? There was the paper. It lay there glimmering under the light, with all the house quiet.

CHAPTER VI.

CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR.

MONSIEUR ET HONORÉ LECTEUR! I see, as perfectly as if you were sitting opposite to me, the scorn depicted on your noble countenance when you read my confession that I, Charles Batchelor, Esquire, did burglariously enter the

premises of Edward Drencher, Esquire, M.R.C.S.I. (phew! the odious pestle-grinder, I never could bear him!) and break open, and read a certain letter, his property. I may have been wrong, but I am candid. I tell my misdeeds; some fellows hold their tongues. Besides, my good man, consider the temptation, and the horrid insight into the paper which Bedford's report had already given me. Would you like to be told that the girl of your heart was playing fast and loose with it, had none of her own, or had given hers to another? I don't want to make a Mrs. Robin Gray of any woman, and merely because "her mither presses her sair" to marry against her will. "If Miss Prior," thought I, "prefers this lint-scraper to me, ought I to baulk her? He is younger and stronger, certainly, than myself. Some people may consider him handsome. (By the way, what a remarkable thing it is about many women, that, in affairs of the heart, they don't seem to care or understand whether a man is a gentleman or not.) It may be it is my superior fortune and social station which may induce Elizabeth to waver in her choice between me and my bleeding, bolusing, tooth-drawing rival. If so, and I am only taken from mercenary considerations, what a pretty chance of subsequent happiness do either of us Take the vaccinator, girl, if thou preferrest him! I know what it is to be crossed in love already. It's hard, but I can bear it! I ought to know, I must know, I will know what is in that paper!" So saying, as I pace round and round the table where the letter lies flickering white under the midnight taper, I stretch out my hand-I seize the paper-well, I own it-there-yes-I took it, and I read it.

A

Or rather, I may say, I read that part of IT which the bleeder and blisterer had flung down. It was but a fragment of a letter a fragment-oh! how bitter to swallow! lump of Epsom salt could not have been more disgusting. It appeared (from Bedford's statement) that Esculapius, on getting into his gig, had allowed this scrap of paper to whisk out of his pocket-the rest he read, no doubt, under the eyes of the writer. Very likely, during the perusal, he had taken and squeezed the false' hand which wrote the lines. Very likely the first part of the precious document contained com

pliments to him from the horrible context I judge socompliments to that vendor of leeches and bandages, into whose heart I daresay I wished ten thousand lancets might be stuck, as I perused the FALSE ONE'S wheedling address to him! So ran the document. How well every word of it was engraven. on my anguished heart! If page three, which I suppose was about the bit of the letter which I got, was as it was what must pages one and two have been? The dreadful document began, then, thus:

dear hair in the locket, which I shall ever wear for the sake of him who gave it"(dear hair! indeed-disgusting carrots! She should have been ashamed to call it "dear hair" "for the sake of him who gave it, and whose bad temper I shall pardon, because I think in spite of his faults he is a little fond of his poor Lizzie! Ah, Edward! how could you go on so the last time about poor Mr. B. Can you imagine that I can ever have more than a filial regard for the kind old gentleman ?" (Il était question de moi, ma parole d'honneur. I was the kind old gentleman!) "I have known him since my childhood. He was intimate in our family in earlier and happier days; made our house his home; and, I must say, was most kind to all of us children. If he has vanities, you naughty boy, is he the only one of his sex who is vain? Can you fancy that such an old creature (an old muff, as you call him, you wicked, satirical man!) could ever make an impression on my heart? No, sir!" (Aha! So I was an old muff, was I?) "Though. I don't wish to make yous vain too, or that other people should laugh at you, as you do at poor dear Mr. B., I think, sir, you need but look in your glass to see that you need not be afraid of such a rival as that. You fancy he is attentive to me? If you looked only a little angrily at him, he would fly back to London. To-day, when your horrid little patient did presume to offer to take my hand, when I boxed his little wicked ears and sent him spinning to the end of the room-poor Mr. Batch was so frightened that he did not dare to come into the room, and I saw him peeping behind a statue on the lawn, and he would not come in until the servants arrived. Poor man! We cannot all of us have courage like a certain Edward, who I know is as bold as a lion. Now, sir, you must not be quarrel

ling with that wretched little captain for being rude. I have shown him that I can very well take care of myself. I knew the odious thing the first moment I set eyes on him, though he had forgotten me. Years ago I met him, and I remember he was equally rude and tips"

Here the letter was torn. Beyond "tips" it did not go. But that was enough, wasn't it? To this woman I had offered a gentle and manly, I may say a kind and tender heart-I had offered four hundred a year in funded property, besides my house in Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury and she preferred Edward, forsooth, at the sign of the Gallipot: and may ten thousand pestles smash my brains!

You may fancy what a night I had after reading that scrap. I promise you I did not sleep much. I heard the hours toll as I kept vigil. I lay amidst shattered capitals, broken shafts of the tumbled palace which I had built in imagination-oh! how bright and stately! I sat amongst the ruins of my own happiness, surrounded by the murdered corpses of innocentvisioned domestic joys. Tick-tock! Moment after moment I heard on the clock the clinking footsteps of wakeful grief. I fell into a doze towards morning, and dreamed that I was dancing with Glorvina, when I woke with a start, finding Bedford arrived with my shaving-water, and opening the shutters. When he saw my haggard face he wagged his head.

"You have read it, I see, sir," says he.

"Yes, Dick," groaned I, out of bed, "I have swallowed it." And I laughed I may say a fiendish laugh. "And now I have taken it, not poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups in his shop (hang him) will be able to medicine me to sleep for some time to come!"

"She has no heart, sir. I don't think she cares for t'other chap much," groans the gloomy butler. "She can't, after having known us"-and my companion in grief, laying down my hot-water jug, retreats.

I did not cut any part of myself with my razor. I shaved quite calmly. I went to the family at breakfast. My impression is I was sarcastic and witty. I smiled most kindly at Miss Prior when she came in. Nobody could have seen from my outward behaviour that anything was wrong within.